Key West Heat

by Alice Orr

  She hadn’t worked out exactly what she would do when she got to his place this morning. She would tell him what she was feeling and thinking, but she wasn’t sure how to go about doing that. She would have to trust the words to come when she needed them. She was pedaling down Duval Street when it occurred to her that Des would most likely be sleeping at this hour, and she had no idea how to get inside the gates to the café that also led to his apartment. She hadn’t noticed anything so conventional as a doorbell. Maybe she would have to find a pay phone and call him to wake him up. She wondered if his number was listed. It further occurred to her that, though they had connected very intimately with each other, she knew nothing of the details of his everyday life. She wasn’t sure whether that made her feel intrigued or uneasy. She was glad to stop debating the point with herself when she arrived at the café and found the bamboo gate ajar.

  Taylor leaned her bicycle against the fence across from a black-and-chrome motorcycle that was chained to a parking meter near the curb. She wondered if that motorcycle might belong to Des. It was a large and powerful model. A feeling of menace swept over her when she looked at it. She told herself to stop being so skittish and walked to the gate. She considered knocking, but that seemed inappropriate for a bamboo fence.

  She pushed the gate open. Des was seated at a table at the far end of the courtyard near the restaurant building. He had his back to her. The sight of his broad shoulders and strong, muscled back made her heart leap in her chest. She was so happy to see him that at first she didn’t notice the tension in those shoulders as he leaned toward the gray-haired man sitting opposite him. The man noticed Taylor before Des did.

  The stranger wasn’t wearing the usual Key West sunglasses, so Taylor could see his eyes. He was staring at her very intently, almost as if he knew her, but she was certain she had never seen him before. He also looked surprised to see her, maybe even shocked. That impression could be another example of skittishness on her part, but she didn’t think so. Her instincts, fine-tuned by the incidents of the past few days, told her there was more going on here than might be obvious on the surface.

  The man touched Des’s arm and nodded in her direction. Des turned toward her for a very brief moment. He didn’t speak. Instead, he glanced back at his companion. Once more, Taylor’s instincts were on the alert. They told her that the glance between the two men had been a significant one, and not meant for her to see. The former exuberance she had felt at the beautiful morning and in anticipation of seeing Des was deflated in an instant. It was replaced by the morass of suspicions that she had been struggling to elude.

  Chapter Ten

  “This is my friend Newt,” Des said in answer to Taylor’s inquiring glance at his companion.

  A slightly nervous smile passed over the older man’s face. “It’s Lewt actually,” he said. “Lewt Walgreen.”

  “You must not be very close friends, Des, if you don’t remember the man’s name.” Taylor was itching to be much more direct with her suspicious questions, but she would bide her time for now.

  “I’m more a friend of Violetta Ramone. An old friend of hers,” said Lewt, or Newt or whatever his name might be. “I heard what happened to her and came to ask Destiny about it.”

  Taylor was surprised to hear him use Des’s full name. Hadn’t he said that nobody knew him as anything but Des, except some people who’d known him as a kid? Or had Winona been the one to mention that? Yet, if Walgreen had been around since Des’s childhood, how could he possibly not remember the man’s name?

  “I haven’t seen Lewt in many years,” Des said, as if he might have guessed her question.

  Taylor was too far into suspicion mode to be that easily satisfied. “I see,” she said. “Well, are you going to invite me to sit?”

  “Sure. Sit.”

  Des rose and pulled out a chair for her at the table. She could tell he wasn’t happy to have her here. She had interrupted something. She was certain of that. She had walked in unexpectedly on something he didn’t want her to know about or be a part of. Ordinarily, she would have taken the hint and politely excused herself. However, she wasn’t feeling particularly polite at the moment. In fact, she was closer to downright belligerent than she could remember being in a very long time. She was tired of secrets. She had the definite sensation of being surrounded by lies. She intended to stick around here this morning until some truth came out.

  “Why don’t you make us some coffee, Des,” she said. She had noticed the empty table in front of the two men and would have thought it contrary to Des’s professional-host mentality to leave a guest so unattended. “Did Des offer you some coffee, Mr. Walgreen?”

  “Well...no,” Lewt managed.

  “Des is known far and wide for his special brew. Isn’t that true, Des? He even delivers it in person to visiting tourists on occasion. I cannot imagine why he would let you sit here so long without offering you a cup.” Taylor kept her voice warm and sweet, even syrupy, as if she had no awareness at all of the uneasiness these two were so obviously exhibiting because of her presence.

  “I arrived only a few moments before you,” Lewt said. “Destiny hasn’t had time to offer me much of anything. Except some kind understanding about Violetta, that is.”

  “Kind understanding,” Taylor said, sweeter than ever. “That happens to be another one of the house specialties. Isn’t that also right, Des?”

  Under usual circumstances, Taylor would have expected a smooth “Of course” and a slow smile from the cool Mr. Maxwell. Instead, he pushed his chair back so fast he nearly tipped it over. He stood up just as hastily.

  “I’ll make us some coffee,” he said.

  He looked back and forth between Taylor and Walgreen. Taylor had the strong impression that Des didn’t want to leave her alone with his friend. She could hardly wait to start poking around in Mr. Walgreen’s head in search of the reason for Des’s reluctance. As Des hurried toward the restaurant kitchen, Taylor had another strong impression—that the unflappable Des was flapping rather wildly all of a sudden. She would have bet money that Lewt was the key to that loss of composure. She also suspected that all of this had something to do with her.

  As soon as Des was out of earshot, she turned to Mr. Walgreen and favored him with her most charming smile. “Do you live here on Key West?” she asked.

  “Right now I do,” he said. “I tend to move around quite a bit. For the moment, I’ve got a room over near the Kraals.”

  He continued to stare at her, even more intently now that she was at close range.

  “May I be so rude as to ask whether you might have some vision problems?”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “You know. Do you perhaps not see very well?”

  “I think I see just fine. Twenty-twenty, or almost so.” He was obviously confused. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because you’ve been staring at me as if you might be nearsighted and having trouble making out my features up this close.” Taylor paused for a calculated moment. “Except that, as I recall, you stared at me the same way when I came in the gate back there.” She motioned toward the far end of the courtyard. “Isn’t that curious?” She smiled winsomely once more. She was almost enjoying this little game. Still, she hadn’t forgotten its real purpose—to gain information.

  “It’s just that you put me in mind of somebody I used to know,” he said softly.

  “And who might that be?”

  Taylor was so intent upon sounding glib that she didn’t immediately comprehend the implication of what he had said. He didn’t answer her. He was gazing down at his hands on the table in front of him. His shoulders had slumped into a posture of what looked like dejection. It finally occurred to Taylor that if he was an old friend of Violetta’s and probably knew Des when he was a boy, then maybe...

  “Is it my mother that I remind you of?” she asked.

  Again he didn’t answer, but he looked up at her this time. There was sadness in his ey
es and maybe even a mist of tears. He nodded. Suddenly, Taylor’s plan to pump him for information about Des was less important than it had been a moment ago. She realized that there were other mysteries, even more pressing, to explore.

  “Did you know her well?” Taylor asked.

  “I wish I had known her better,” he said, almost in a whisper.

  “Tell me what she was like. Please.”

  He looked into Taylor’s eyes for a long moment. She hoped he would see the need there as well as hear it in her words.

  He cleared his throat, and when he spoke his voice was stronger. “She was wonderful.”

  “Des said that, too. I was hoping you could be more specific.”

  “She was very beautiful,” he began, slowly at first. “She had the loveliest hands I have ever seen.”

  “Very gentle hands,” Taylor said. “I think I remember that about her.”

  “What else do you remember about her?”

  Taylor’s thoughts had wandered off for a moment. Now she saw that he was looking at her very intently again, but somehow differently from before. He seemed more troubled now.

  “I don’t remember much at all, actually,” she said, wondering why she felt compelled to tell this stranger something so personal and sensitive. “I’ve tried, but all I come up with are vague impressions, like of her hands just now.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t remember her better than that. She wasn’t the kind of person it’s easy to forget. You were old enough, nearly seven, when she...” He paused, obviously hesitant to speak aloud of Desiree’s death.

  “You must have cared about her very much,” Taylor said.

  “Very much.”

  The mist in his eyes was brighter now. He brushed at what might have been a tear on his right cheek. On the back of his hand he had a tattoo of a rose with an elaborate design among its vines. He managed a smile. Taylor couldn’t help thinking there was something familiar about that smile, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it might be.

  “You should do your best to find out whatever you can about Desiree,” he said. “Maybe that will jog your memory.”

  “My mind has its own reasons for not wanting to remember. At least, that’s what I’ve been told, and I guess it makes sense to me that could be true. I shouldn’t try to force things to come back. If they do, they do. If they don’t, they don’t.”

  He chuckled. “You sound exactly like Pearl. I remember her saying just those words. ‘If they do, they do. If they don’t, they don’t.’”

  “You knew my Aunt Pearl, too?”

  “I knew the whole family.” The chuckle had faded. He looked sad again after a brief moment of almost lightheartedness. “Key West is a small town,” he said. “Everybody knows everybody.”

  “But that was a long time ago. Pearl left here when I did, and she never came back.”

  “I was around before she left, for a while at least. She was also a very memorable woman, like your mother. You come from a family of memorable women.”

  Taylor didn’t believe for an instant that was all there was to it. She would have liked to interrogate him more about his relationships with those memorable Bissett women, but Des had emerged from the restaurant door with a tray in his hands. He hurried toward them across the flagstone courtyard. Taylor was still determined to find out more from Mr. Walgreen, enough to be able to get in touch with him on her own and pick his brain clean if she could. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity for that. He barely tasted his coffee before abruptly excusing himself. He said he was late for another ap-pointment. Once again, Taylor didn’t believe he was telling the truth, at least not all of it.

  Des walked Lewt to the gate. She would have liked to accompany them, but they were both up from the table and gone before she could collect her thoughts enough to follow. She thought better of running after them across the courtyard. She didn’t want to appear that desperate for information. In her experience, she got what she was after most easily when she pretended not to care much about having it. So, when Des returned to the table she kept her questions casual. Still, he revealed very little other than that he really didn’t know Lewt well and had no idea where he lived.

  “Near something he called the Kraals,” she said.

  “That would be the Turtle Kraals.”

  “Where exactly is that?”

  “The Kraals are down by the harbor, near Caroline and Grinnell.”

  “Didn’t we drive down Caroline Street once? Isn’t that one of those streets of beautiful houses?” Taylor asked, trying to sound casual as she angled for more details.

  “Not near the Kraals. They may be on the same street, but they’re very different parts of town.”

  “I see,” Taylor said, filing all of that away for future reference.

  They drank their coffee in silence after that. They didn’t talk about the night before or the more distant past or any of what Taylor had originally come here to discuss. She had all but forgotten those concerns for the moment. She did make note that it was regular coffee they were drinking, which aroused her suspicions anew. She guessed that Des had been afraid to leave her alone with Lewt Walgreen long enough to make the more complicated café au lait. She also guessed it would be futile to ask Des to tell her why.

  * * *

  LATER, BACK at the Starling house on Elizabeth Street, Taylor would be the one answering questions. She wasn’t in the mood for that. The day had grown more humid during her hour at the café. The pedal back to Winona’s was neither breezy nor cool. The air had grown heavy and unpleasantly damp on Taylor’s skin. Her frame of mind contributed to that unpleasantness. By the time she parked her bike against the Starling garage, she felt sticky and out of humor. She only stopped on the back veranda as a courtesy to her hostess, whom Taylor anticipated would be there having breakfast as she did each morning. Taylor had planned to say a brief hello, then go immediately upstairs to shower and change her perspiration-soaked clothes. Just about the last person she cared to see was the man seated across from Winona incongruously, for him at least, sipping tea.

  “Ms. Bissett, how nice of you to join us at last,” Detective Santos said in his customary arch tone.

  Taylor suppressed a groan.

  “The detective insisted on waiting for you,” Winona said. “I suggested that he come back later, but he wouldn’t hear of it.” She wore her dark glasses. If her eyes had been visible, Taylor suspected she might see an apology there for not being able to call Santos off her trail.

  “I don’t suppose you would be willing to wait a little longer until I can change my clothes?” she asked Santos.

  “Your supposition is correct.”

  He pushed back the chair next to him so she could sit. Taylor chose a seat on the other side of the table instead.

  “Dr. Starling tells me you’ve been out for some morning exercise.”

  “That’s right. I have.”

  “You look like it was quite a strain,” he said, pointedly observing her flushed, damp cheeks and disheveled outfit. “Did you bike to any place in particular?”

  “No place in particular.”

  “And if I knew your destination would I maybe find a dead body there?”

  “No, you would not.” Taylor felt her exasperation with this annoying man rise toward the boiling point. She was too out of sorts to be subjected to his snideness right now. “And, if you don’t have any serious questions to ask me, then I am going upstairs to change, whether you want me to or not.”

  “I wouldn’t suggest you do that.”

  “What would you suggest, Detective Santos? That I sit here calmly while you do your best to provoke me? Is that your plan?”

  “Who said I was trying to provoke you, Ms. Bissett? I’m just doing my job.”

  His condescending tone was extremely irritating to Taylor. She was beginning to feel very jerked around, and not only by this detective character.

  “Ask me a specific question, or I am going to leav
e, no matter what you suggest,” she said. “And if you don’t like that, you will probably like harassment charges even less.”

  Winona’s eyebrows arched visibly above her sunglass frames. Taylor recognized that as a signal to back off, that she was over the top and in danger of getting herself in real trouble. She knew that was true. Santos was the police, after all. He could probably even arrest her as a material witness or whatever. She had been pushed too far already this morning to care.

  “Specific question number one,” Santos said. “Where were you on the afternoon Violetta Ramone was killed?”

  “Are you sure she didn’t just die of a heart attack?” Taylor asked.

  “As I believe I may have said at the time, it might be accurate to say she was scared to death—deliberately.”

  “Isn’t that rather difficult to prove?”

  “Don’t worry, Ms. Bissett. I will be able to prove what I need to prove when the time comes. Now, please, answer my question. Where were you that afternoon?”

  Taylor hesitated, even though she knew Santos was aware of exactly where she had been. She was wondering why he was pressing the point now. She and Des had both admitted their whereabouts that afternoon. Maybe Santos was looking for specifics after all. Policeman or not, she certainly wasn’t going to tell him that she and Des had been making love.

  “I was with Mr. Maxwell,” she said. “Didn’t we tell you that at the time, when you questioned us at Violetta’s house?”

  “I’m just checking to see if your story might have changed.”

  “Why would my story change? It happens to be the truth.”

  “It also happens to be very convenient, since it makes you each other’s alibi for the time of the death.” Santos leaned back in his chair and smirked at her. “I’d call that convenient.”